I cover cardiology news for CardioExchange, a social media website for cardiologists published by the New England Journal of Medicine. I was the editor of TheHeart.Org from its inception in 1999 until December 2008. Following the purchase of TheHeart.Org by WebMD in 2005, I became the editorial director of WebMD professional news, encompassing TheHeart.Org and Medscape Medical News. Prior to joining TheHeart.Org, I was a freelance medical journalist and wrote for a wide variety of medical and computer publications. In 1994-1995 I was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. I have a PhD in English from SUNY Buffalo, and I drove a taxicab in New York City before embarking on a career in medical journalism. You can follow me on Twitter at: @cardiobrief.

Lower Blood Pressure Found In Vegetarians

A new study provides the strongest evidence yet that a vegetarian diet is strongly associated with lower blood pressure. Although various health benefits of a vegetarian diet have often been proposed, a rigorous examination of the effect on blood pressure has not been previously performed.

In a paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Japanese researchers analyzed data from 7 clinical trials, including 311 participants, and 32 observational studies, including 21,604 participants. In the clinical trials the vegetarian diet was associated with a 4.8 mm Hg drop in the systolic blood pressure and a 2.2 mm Hg drop in the diastolic blood pressure. In the observational studies, the reductions were 6.9 mm Hg and 4.7 mm Hg.

The authors noted that the magnitude of the blood pressure-lowering effect was about half the size of typical antihypertensive drugs and roughly equivalent to commonly recommended lifestyle modifications such as a low-salt diet or weight reduction. Based on previous research the blood pressure reductions would be expected to lead to a 7% reduction in overall mortality, a 9% reduction in coronary heart disease, and a 14% reduction in stroke.

The authors speculated about possible explanations for the relationship between the vegetarian diet and blood pressure:

Vegetarians are less likely to be obese and to have a lower body mass index.

Vegetarian diets are high in potassium.

Some but not all studies have found that vegetarian diets contain less sodium.

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